Agnes prattled on, as yet unused to the prudence of choosing her words.
Edith continued to drive on, the accelerator flat-out. She was wondering what to do. They climbed to the steepest part of the road, but instead of stopping, as usual, the driver continued. She did not even brake and the car gathered speed.
The elder Miss Pott seemed too occupied with the business in hand to notice the furious, mounting pace at which they were travelling.
“As for these trips to the Downs and the notes you make, Edith.… You must tell me of them, too. I shall be able to help. I CAN HEAR NOW.”
Agnes shouted it above the roar of the careering vehicle.
Edith knew that the secret was one which Agnes’s integrity would not countenance. Her rage knew no bounds. Her eyes turned to the small contrivance which Agnes wore proudly, like a medal for valour, on her jumper. Then she saw red! She snatched at it with one hand, whilst trying to steer with the other.
“What are you doing?” screamed the astonished wearer above the din and she instinctively seized Edith’s arm in both her hands.
The wheel turned, the car swerved. Both women were tossed apart. Only then did they seem to realise the speed at which they were moving. The younger tried desperately to put things right, braking with both hand and foot. The car left the road under the strain, bounded down the incline, seemed to bounce, topple and struggle like a live thing to keep four-square on its wheels. Then, it struck a solitary sycamore tree just where the ground levelled out a bit. There was a jolt and a scream. The little Morris crumpled and bent as though a giant hand were squeezing it.
Over the hill appeared an uncomfortable rider on a motor-cycle, a billycock pressed down over his ears. At the sight of the accident he pulled-up with a jerk, parked the machine by the roadside and tore down the slope.
Both sisters were dead when Cromwell reached the car. Reverently he wrestled to remove his bowler hat and bared his head for Agnes.
“This saves you a lot of pain and trouble, Miss Agnes,” he muttered and looked sadly at the precious hearing-box which she was clutching to her even in death.
Cromwell sighed, hurried uphill to his bike, and roared off to get help.
CATCH-AS-CATCH-CAN
POLICE Constable Joseph Bowells looked rather sheepishly at his wife as he entered for breakfast early on the morning after the phenomenal darts match.
“Did I get a ’phone call last night to report early at the ’all, Gwen, or did I dream it?” he said, trying to pass off the matter with heavy jocularity and not succeeding.
“Of course you did. I mean, you’re to report at the Hall,” replied Mrs. Bowells. She was a bright little round-faced woman with fluffy greying hair.
“Better ’urry up and be off, then. Wonder what they’re wantin’.”
The village policeman was tall and heavy, with a ruddy, shining, clean-shaven face. Very popular in his own territory, too. There was little crime in Harwood. A few poachers, with now and then some chap or other getting a bit above himself in drink and beating-up his wife. But Bowells did good work. It was a comfort to know that he was there in case of need, solid, good-natured, reliable and full of sound advice.
His chief defect was his name, which caused some vulgar mirth when he first arrived in those parts from his native Essex. His own father had been very sensitive about it after an incident in which counsel for the defendants in a poaching case had made great fun of the name. In fact, after that event, Bowells pére, like Tom Hood’s Mr. Hogsflesh, had been quite put out of countenance unless addressed by his initial, as mere Mr. B. But P.C. Bowells didn’t care a hoot about it. Nor did his wife. He even knew that it had once been Le Bow, and wondered who’d had the grim humour to change it.
So P.C. Bowells, wearing his flat cap, for he’d ridden to the Hall on his bike, presented himself deferentially before Littlejohn for his instructions.
“Do you know anything about Dr. Braun who’s living in these flats?” asked the Inspector after the formalities of getting acquainted had been completed.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Dr. Braun … B-R-A-U-N.…”
“Oh, BRAWN.… Well, sir, I know a bit about ’im. You see, I’m in a way responsible for keepin’ an eye on him. He’s registerable under the regulations as a friendly alien.”
“That’s it, Bowells. Well, do you ever come across him on your rounds?”
“Now and then, sir. He goes off diggin’ with that there van of his and his two assistants.”
“Know anything about the two young men?”
“Very little, sir. Both British, they are. They’re living down at the Arms, sir, and the landlord says they pay promptly and are well-behaved. Keep themselves to themselves, too. No drinkin’ with the public or such. Wrapped up in their work, they seem to be.”
“H’m. And what do they do with the van?”
“Well, they’ve permission to dig in certain of these parts. There are ancient burying-places hereabouts, you know, which it’s forbidden to disturb except with permission. They’ve got that all right and go working ’ere and there at it. I’ve been there when they’ve dug-up bones and pots and what looked like weapons o’ sorts. They pack the lot, earth and all, in those packin’ cases you always see them with, and carry it back to the ’all for storage and closer examination. Seem to get on all right with the farmers whose land they dig-up, too. Pay well for it, I’m told.”
“You’ve spoken to them?”
“Oh, yes. Civil enough they are. Showed me letters and paper givin’ ’em permission, and when I reported it to headquarters, I was told to give ’em every facility within the limits of their permits, like.”
“What do you think of Braun?”
“Not much. Surly sort of chap. Lost in his own affairs; all intent on what he’s doing. Leaves everything to the young chaps in the way of explanations and gets impatient if anybody stays around for long. Perhaps thinks they might pinch his old bones.”
“Well, Bowells, I want you to keep an eye on their activities for a day or two. In strictest confidence, we’re losing our trust in Dr. Braun. That’s all I can say for the moment about it, but I want you to keep him and his party under observation.”
So … thought Bowells, and not before it’s time. He didn’t approve of Germans in any shape or form, especially impudent ones, and he classed Dr. Braun among the latter.
“Where are they working at the moment? Do you know, Bowells?”
“Yes, sir. I saw ’em at it yesterday by Plumpton’s Farm. What they’re doing there, I don’t know. I never heard about any old burial-grounds thereabouts. They were diggin’ a hole in a field near the railway. Busy as bees, they were.”
“Where is this farm?”
“Fields run up to the railway-line between Meadford and South Gorsley on the main London line.”
“Well, just watch them for a day of two and report to me, Bowells, if there’s anything unusual happening.”
“Very good, sir.”
“They’ve not left yet, but I can hear them stirring above, so you’d better be off and get there before them. Don’t let them know you’re watching them, of course.”
“Trust me, sir.”
P.C. Bowells was in his element. He was a patriot to his very marrow and of late he had been depressed. His two sons were in the forces. His wife had taken in two evacuees. She was president of the Women’s Institute and, as such, made large quantities of jams and socks. The constable himself did a lot of extra duties in connection with A.R.P. and tightened patrols, to say nothing of extending his kitchen garden by a hundred per cent or more. Yet, he felt he wasn’t doing enough. He wanted to run-in everyone who wasted petrol or held dinner parties until the small hours of the morning, but unluckily, the local upstart gentry were the offenders and some of them were even J.P.s. And then there were those he knew quite well who were hoarding food or frequenting black markets. But he couldn’t make a proper case of it without unlawfully entering their premises.…
But this … a sort of spying on spies and perhaps saboteurs … was just his meat! Metaphorically, P.C. Bowells spat on his hands.
First of all, the constable thought it best to have a word with Ward, the tenant of Plumpton’s. Ward was a decent, civil fellow and was quite open about it all.
“The foreign chap, Brawn.…”
“Braun,” corrected Bowells.
“Braun, then, came here one day last week and asked if he could do a bit o’ diggin’ in the field next to the railway embankment. He said, according to some old maps he’d dug out, he believed there was once an old barrow there. I was a bit puzzled, like, wonderin’ what he’d be wanting with old barrows, until he said he meant a sort of mound where ancient people had been buried.”
“A mound?” said Bowells. “Why, the place is marshy and flat, isn’t it? If I recollect right, there’s a culvert runs out of that field with drainage water, isn’t there?”
“That’s right, Joe. I said the same to Brawn. ‘You must ’a made a mistake,’ I sez. ‘There’s never been any mound there. Why, the field was a marsh until we put in the culvert to take the water off and under the line of the river.’ ‘That’s as may be,’ sez his nibs. ‘I’m speakin’ o’ hundreds, nay thousands o’ years since.’ And he begins to get impatient, like.”
“That’s him. One would think he owned the country instead of being a refugee. However, go on, Fred.”
“I was just gettin’ my rag out, too. Felt the blood of temper risin’, I did. When he suddenly calms down and offers me ten pounds for the privilege of digging there, he calls it. Well, Joe. I ask you. Ten pounds. Money for jam, wasn’t it? The field’s good for nothin’ … a bit of pasture and then, damn all else. The part he wanted to dig in is just overgrown with rushes. I jumped at the offer.”
“I don’t blame you, Fred.”
“And since then … well, for two days, the day before yesterday and yesterday, they’ve just been diggin’ a hole among the rushes. I’ve left ’em to their own devices. I’ve got my ten-pound note, Joe, and provided they leave the place straight as promised, I’ve nothin’ to complain of.”
“Quite right, too, Fred. But I’m just goin’ to keep an eye on them pro-tem, Fred. Nothin’ very official, you know.…”
“Why, what they been up to? Hope I’m not bein’ mixed-up in any jiggery-pokery, Joe. Because if I am, off they go, ten pounds or no ten pounds.…”
“Don’t you worry, Fred. I have my doubts as to whether they’re allowed permission to dig up burial grounds, if such they be, which I doubt, without proper permission from Somerset House,” lied P.C. Bowells valiantly and ignorantly in a good cause. “So I’ll jest hang around a bit. But don’t you on any account mention it to Brawn.… Braun, I mean.”
“As if I would, Joe …! You know me better nor that.”
By the time the savant, his followers, their van and the packing-cases arrived, the constable was hidden in a derelict cart, which had been left to rot within fifty yards of the very spot where the men were digging. Braun and his retinue did not waste much time. They looked well around them, seemed satisfied that they weren’t observed, and got to business.
The motor-van had been drawn up as near to the scene of operations as the peaty soil would permit. The men brought down the packing-cases from inside and carried them to the edge of the pit they had dug. They fished in the cases and brought out overalls which they donned. Then Braun and one of them started to grub about in the hole, apparently hunting bones and the like. At least, that is what they seemed to be doing from Bowells’ improvised gazebo.
The other man, however, busied himself coming and going to and from the nearby drainage conduit which ran under the railway line. He was very casual about it and didn’t stay there for long at each trip. He carried several things with him, cautiously. To the watcher they looked like pieces of bone which he seemed to be hiding.
“Maybe they’re finding something they shouldn’t there, and hidin’ it away,” said Bowells to himself. “I’ll take a look-see when they’ve gone.”
But Bowells was unlucky.
The cart in which he had concealed himself was not up to the strain of bearing the constable’s weight indefinitely, especially when he writhed into new positions to ease the ache in his cramped limbs. After a creaking protest or two, the rotten bottom of the contrivance fell out, revealing a pair of blue, bicycle-clipped trousers for all to see.
The men at the hole looked up at the noise of scuffling and rending, and Braun, with a startled exclamation, hurried to the scene of the collapse.
Bowells found himself staring down the barrel of a nasty-looking automatic.
“ ’ere. Just you put that down, Mr. Brawn, and explain yourself,” said the constable calmly. The fellow might be armed, but no Hun was going to scare Joe Bowells.
The two assistants ran to the scene.
“I wouldn’t, if I were you, Dr. Braun. This will only cause complications.…”
“Not if I shoot him, as I surely will if he moves further.”
The bobby knew from the look in his eye that Braun meant it, too, so he resigned himself to what was next on the programme.
“Tie him up,” said Braun. “A good thing for you, my friend, our work ends here to-day. Otherwise …”
P.C. Bowells didn’t even flinch. It reminded him of the pictures.
The two young men set about their task with obvious distaste. They were English, or pretended to be, and instinctively rebelled against even handling a man in blue.
Trussed-up, ankles, hands, arms, legs, and a clean pocket handkerchief stuffed in his mouth, P.C. Bowells was hoisted back into what remained of the wreck of the cart and left to his own thoughts, whilst his antagonists returned to their labours.
Trains came and went on the line. The constable guessed the time by the passing of a Pullman, which he could see through a chink in the wood. Only ten o’clock! How much longer … and what then?
Suddenly, through one of the rotten boards of the old vehicle Bowells noticed a piece of sheet-tin. It was rusty, but still on its outside bore the dim inscription, “F. Ward, Farmer, Plumpton’s Meadford.” It was screwed on the side of the cart.
Gently Bowells eased himself nearer to the plate. Turning his back to it, he maneuvered his wrists in the direction of it. The crack in the wood through which it showed was far too small to permit his passing his hands through, but the timber was rotten and might break away.
Train followed train on the embankment and still Bowells writhed and snorted and struggled. He often took his wife to the pictures, but never imagined anything of this sort happening to him! Bit by bit, he clawed away the rotten wood with his nails. It hurt him like hell. At length he was able to squeeze his hands through. When he told the tale afterwards, P.C. Bowells wasn’t ashamed to say that he said his prayers many times over. He was afraid the tin plaque would break from its moorings and fall to the ground as soon as he laid the weight of his tied wrists on it. However, it didn’t. By 11.30 he was free, for as soon as he recovered the use of his hands, he hauled out a great clasp-knife from beneath his tunic and hacked the rest of his bonds away.
It all had to be done gingerly, too, lest the men so busy at the hole and the culvert be alarmed. And there was blood over everything, because Bowells couldn’t keep his flesh free from the tin as he wore away the rope. He deserved the recognition he afterwards received for his share in the affair. Sergeant Bowells.…
The next item on the agenda was as ticklish as the first, for the constable had now to worm himself from the rickety cart and edge his way across the field for help without disturbing the diggers. He managed to do it, in spite of his bulk. A man of great patience, Bowells. Inch by inch. The long rushes assisted him, too. He chose his time, when the two in the hole were immersed and the other fellow was in the culvert. Flat-out among the rushes crawled Joe Bowells. Like an eel to the ditch, and then it was easy. He was a mile from the farm and was afraid that if they discovered he w
as missing, his quarry would bolt. But, as he emerged from the ditch under cover of a thorn hedge, he saw two Canadian soldiers sitting smoking on a gate. They had been trying a short cut to Meadford station and had lost their way.
P.C. Bowells spoke first.
“In the name of the law!” he said, and told them at once what he wanted. He was covered in mud and blood, but he impressed the two soldiers.
They looked at each other.
“What did we come over here for?” asked one.
“Sure,” replied his pal, and then and there they joined the constable’s posse.
Bowells now knew the lie of the land thoroughly and led his forces skilfully. They were on Braun and his troop before the enemy knew what had got them.
Braun’s assistants were no chickens. In fact, they looked liked Rugby heavyweights. At the sight of them, the two Canadians silently spat on their hands.
On the way, Bowells picked up a round stone the size of a cricket ball. In the good old days, the bobby had been Harwood’s best slow bowler. He said his prayers again as he arranged his fingers cunningly round the smooth sides of his missile.
Luckily, the two assistants were not armed. The constable’s force burst whooping upon them from thirty yards, running pell-mell. Braun drew his automatic as soon as he had recovered from the shock. Bowells sent him a body-line ball which took him full in the solar plexus. Before the fellow could recover his poise the bobby was on him, had him by the scruff of the neck, shook him like a rat, and then snapped on the handcuffs.
The rest of the catch-as-catch-can didn’t last long. The Canadians had been spoiling for a fight. After the first blow from one of them, his opponent seemed to sail into the air, hit the earth with a thud and continued to lie still in spite of the soldier’s eloquent persuasions. As for the other would-be anthropologist, he showed fight and science. He smote his opponent a mighty blow which made him reel back, and followed it up with another, which, however, was successfully parried. The Canadian smiled grimly. Nobody saw what happened next, but the last of the Braunians measured his length and lay still. They hauled them off to Ward’s place, whence Bowells telephoned to Littlejohn.
Calamity at Harwood Page 12